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(Jan. 28) -- We all know Americans have a fat problem. About 67 percent of adults, 140 million of us, are either overweight or obese, according to government data.

But don't fool yourself into thinking those other 75 million American adults have a healthy relationship with body fat. A new report from the Mayo Clinic, which looked at data from 6,100 patients, warns that as many as 30 million Americans are skinny yet, somehow, still fat.

Put simply, the "skinny-fat" phenomenon occurs when someone has a normal body weight but a high percentage of body fat. Experts have dubbed the problem "normal weight obesity" and warn that it can accompany a host of health risks, mostly the same ones plaguing the obese and overweight: diabetes, metabolic syndrome, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

Those suffering from middle weight obesity probably look average in size but harbor internal fat stores -- called visceral fat -- that surround organs but don't show up upon superficial examination. It takes one of a few specific types of medical tests, like using calipers to pinch fat or submerging the body in water, to determine body fat levels.

High-risk fat levels are about 23 percent for men and 33 percent for women. By comparison, body fat levels among male athletes can be as low as 8 percent, and 15 percent for women.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uses body mass index, based on height and weight, to slot Americans into categories. A BMI below 25 is normal; above 25 is overweight, and anything above 30 is considered obese. The new Mayo Clinic data are based on more precise body fat measurements of those with "normal" BMIs.

The combination of obese and overweight Americans and "normal weight obese" Americans leaves few adults -- about 45 million, or 21 percent -- in a normal range when it comes to weight and fat-to-muscle ratio. With experts urging more exercise to combat both problems, it's interesting to note that this figure almost matches up with current American workout habits: a 2008 Gallup poll found that 32 percent of Americans get regular vigorous activity, and only 15 percent pump iron.

I give up. This is becoming irrationally absurd. Say you exercise 1 hour a day, 5 days a week. That still won't even come close to the amount of exercise a middle-aged, small farmer's wife puts in every single day of the week. Since I'm actually related to a lot of these women, I can tell you with complete confidence that while none of them are fat, none of them look like 25 year old fitness athletes, either.

I'm 6'2" at 185lbs and I'm borderline "overweight". I wouldn't give a shit if it didn't have an impact on my PT scores. I spent most of my life grossly underweight, and I finally get myself to a weight level that I'm comfortable with, and I get all these nuts out here telling me I'm fat and it's causing negative impacts on my career.

Dude! What are the standards now in the military? When I was in the least I ever weighed at 5'10" was 183 pounds. Of course I always had to be taped because I think my weight had to be 169 or something. I never tried to make the weight because it would have been impossible for me to do so without chopping off a leg. I had an aversion to making weight for the Army anyway as I had to make weight for the Golden Gloves and I stayed at welterweight for a year longer than I should have and making weight for that year was a horror!

I'm 6'2" at 185lbs and I'm borderline "overweight". I wouldn't give a shit if it didn't have an impact on my PT scores. I spent most of my life grossly underweight, and I finally get myself to a weight level that I'm comfortable with, and I get all these nuts out here telling me I'm fat and it's causing negative impacts on my career.

Are you sure you didn't mean 5'2" and 185? I'm 6'2" and 190 and i'm no where near max weight. Of course I'm 51 years old too.

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.C. S. LewisDo not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives. (Are you listening Barry)?:mad:Ayn Rand

I've been told to lose weight by giving up carbs. It didn't work.
I tried a low fat diet. It just made me crave Whoppers, which I don't even eat all that often.
I tried macrobiotics. I did lose weight, fast, but I also felt like I was losing my mind.

So I started swimming almost 3 years ago, 4-6 days a week, with no diet. I lost 50 lbs in about 18 months, and have been losing a small amount each year since that mark. I eat what I want, I feel better than I have in a long time, and some of the weight I still carry is converting from fat to muscle. If I lost it all at once, I wouldn't have enough money to keep my wardrobe up. I'm 2 sizes now from my goal. I haven't been this small since I started working for CFS (almost 23 years ago). I'm also smoking a lot less, a decade ago, I smoked a couple of packs a day. I'm down to somewhere between a third and a half a pack a day.

I am convinced that one of the problems with dieters is that they want to lose all the weight quickly, and not do it patiently over time. If you are patient, you don't have to restrict your eating all that much, and can splurge once in a while on something totally unhealthy, like a Whopper or the local chinese buffet.

One of the guys at church told me "you'll never lose any weight by just swimming", then pretended not to notice as a couple of people who hadn't seen me in a while told me how great I looked! He had a diet plan to sell me, of course-I always love it when some guy who is as fat as me tries to sell a diet to me. It's like Dr. Phil writing a diet book.

Swimming has helped my arthritis, so I'm more active than I have been for a decade, even if all the activity isn't what we would call exercise.

I've been told to lose weight by giving up carbs. It didn't work.
I tried a low fat diet. It just made me crave Whoppers, which I don't even eat all that often.
I tried macrobiotics. I did lose weight, fast, but I also felt like I was losing my mind.

So I started swimming almost 3 years ago, 4-6 days a week, with no diet. I lost 50 lbs in about 18 months, and have been losing a small amount each year since that mark. I eat what I want, I feel better than I have in a long time, and some of the weight I still carry is converting from fat to muscle. If I lost it all at once, I wouldn't have enough money to keep my wardrobe up. I'm 2 sizes now from my goal. I haven't been this small since I started working for CFS (almost 23 years ago). I'm also smoking a lot less, a decade ago, I smoked a couple of packs a day. I'm down to somewhere between a third and a half a pack a day.

I am convinced that one of the problems with dieters is that they want to lose all the weight quickly, and not do it patiently over time. If you are patient, you don't have to restrict your eating all that much, and can splurge once in a while on something totally unhealthy, like a Whopper or the local chinese buffet.

One of the guys at church told me "you'll never lose any weight by just swimming", then pretended not to notice as a couple of people who hadn't seen me in a while told me how great I looked! He had a diet plan to sell me, of course-I always love it when some guy who is as fat as me tries to sell a diet to me. It's like Dr. Phil writing a diet book.

Swimming has helped my arthritis, so I'm more active than I have been for a decade, even if all the activity isn't what we would call exercise.